The Tale of Timber Town. Grace Alfred Augustus

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СКАЧАТЬ the street he took the derelict, like a ship in full sail towing a battered, mastless craft into a haven of safety.

      Having brought the “swagger” to a safe anchorage inside his shop, Tresco shut the door, to the exclusion of all intruders; took his gold-scales from a shelf where they had stood, unused and dusty, for many a month; stepped behind the counter, and said, in his best business manner: “Now, sir.”

      The digger unhitched his swag and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor, stood his long manuka stick against the wall, thrust his hand inside his “jumper,” looked at the goldsmith’s rubicund face, drew out a long canvas bag which was tied at the neck with a leather boot-lace, and said, in a hoarse whisper, “There, mister, that’s my pile.”

      Tresco balanced the bag in his hand.

      “You’ve kind o’ struck it,” he said, as he looked at the digger with a blandness which could not have been equalled.

      The digger may have grinned, or he may have scowled – Tresco could not tell – but, to all intents and purposes, he remained imperturbable, for his wilderness of hair and beard, aided by his hat, covered the landscape of his face.

      “Ja-ake!” roared the goldsmith, in his rasping, raucous voice, as though the apprentice were quarter of a mile away. “Come here, you young limb!”

      The shock-headed, rat-faced youth shot like a shrapnel shell from the workshop, and burst upon the astonished digger’s gaze.

      “Take this bob and a jug,” said the goldsmith, “and fetch a quart. We’ll drink your health,” he added, turning to the man with the gold, “and a continual run of good luck.”

      The digger for the first time found his full voice. It was as though the silent company of the wood-hens in the “bush” had caused the hinges of his speech to become rusty. His words jerked themselves spasmodically from behind his beard, and his sentences halted, half-finished.

      “Yes. That’s so. If you ask me. Nice pile? Oh, yes. Good streak o’ luck. Good streak, as you say. Yes. Ha, ha! Ho, ho!” He actually broke into a laugh.

      Tresco polished the brass dish of his scales, which had grown dim and dirty with disuse; then he untied the bag of gold, and poured the rich contents into the dish. The gold lay in a lovely, dull yellow heap.

      “Clean, rough gold,” said Tresco, peering closely at the precious mound, and stirring it with his grimy forefinger. “It’ll go £3 15s. You’re in luck, mister. You’ve struck it rich, and” – he assumed his most benignant expression – “there’s plenty more where this came from, eh?”

      “You bet,” said the digger. “Oh, yes, any Gawd’s quantity.” He laughed again. “You must think me pretty green, mister.” He continued to laugh. “How much for the lot?”

      Tresco spread the gold over the surface of the dish in a layer, and, puffing gently but adroitly, he winnowed it with his nicotine-ladened breath till no particle of sand remained with the gold. Then he put the dish on the scales, and weighed the digger’s “find.”

      “Eighty-two ounces ten pennyweights six grains,” he said, with infinite deliberation, and began to figure on a piece of paper. Seemingly, the goldsmith’s arithmetic was as rusty as the digger’s speech, for the sum took so long to work out that the owner of the gold had time to cut a “fill” of tobacco from a black plug, charge his pipe, and smoke for fully five minutes, before Tresco proclaimed the total. This he did with a triumphant wave of the pen.

      “Three hundred and nine pounds seven shillings and elevenpence farthing. That’s as near as I can get it. Nice clean gold, mister.”

      He looked at the digger; the digger looked at him.

      “What name?” asked Tresco. “To whom shall I draw the cheque?”

      “That’s good! My name?” laughed the digger. “I s’pose it’s usual, eh?”

      “De-cidedly.”

      “Sometimes they call me Bill the Prospector, sometimes Bill the Hatter. I ain’t particular. I’ve got no choice. Take which you like.”

      “‘Pay Bill the Prospector, or Order, three hundred and nine pounds.’ No, sir, that will hardlee do. I want your real name, your proper legal title.”

      “Sounds grand, don’t it? ‘Legal title,’ eh? But if you must have it – though it ar’n’t hardly ever used – put me down Bill Wurcott. That suit, eh? – Bill Wurcott?”

      Tresco began to draw the cheque.

      “Never mind the silver,” said the digger. “Make it three hundred an’ nine quid.” And just then Jake entered with the quart jug, tripped over the digger’s swag, spilt half-a-pint of beer on the floor, recovered himself in time to save the balance, and exclaimed, “Holee smoke!”

      “Tell yer what,” said the digger. “Let the young feller have the change. Good idea, eh?”

      Jake grinned – he grasped the situation in a split second.

      The digger took the cheque from Tresco, looked at it upside-down, and said, “That’s all right,” folded it up, put it in his breeches’ pocket just as if it had been a common one-pound note, and remarked, “Well, I must make a git. So-long.”

      “No, sir,” said the goldsmith. “There is the beer: here are the men. No, sir; not thus must you depart. Refresh the inner man. Follow me. We must drink your health and continued good fortune.”

      Carefully carrying the beer, Tresco led the way to his workshop, placed the jug on his bench, and soon the amber-coloured liquor foamed in two long glasses.

      The digger put his pint to his hairy lips, said, “Kia ora. Here’s fun,” drank deep and gasped – the froth ornamenting his moustache. “The first drop I’ve tasted this three months.”

      “You must ha’ come from way back, where there’re no shanties,” risked Tresco.

      “From way back,” acknowledged the digger.

      “Twelve solid weeks? You must have a thirst.”

      “Pretty fair, you bet.” The digger groped about in the depth of his pocket, and drew forth a fine nugget. “Look at that,” he said, with his usual chuckle.

      Tresco balanced the lump of gold in his deft hand.

      “Three ounces?”

      “Three, six.”

      “’Nother little cheque. Turn out your pockets, mister. I’ll buy all you’ve got.”

      “That’s the lot,” said the digger, taking back the nugget and fingering it lovingly. “I don’t sell that – it’s my lucky bit; the first I found.” Another chuckle. “Tell you what. Some day you can make me something outer this, something to wear for a charm. No alloy, you understand; all pure gold. And use the whole nugget.”

      Tresco pursed his lips, and looked contemplative.

      “A three-ounce charm, worn round the neck, might strangle a digger in a swollen creek. Where’d his luck be then? But how about your missis? Can’t you divide it?”

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